Thankfully Tom and I are over and done with the approval process so this seemed a good time for me to reflect on the last nine months.

I’ll start with the positives…

From the moment we told our family and friends of our intention to adopt they have been more supportive and caring than we could ever have hoped for. Even aunts & cousins I haven’t seen for years had heard about it from my mum and were truly excited for us. All of this has really helped keep us going when it was feeling stressful. On the downside, at times when nothing much has happened (see below) it’s been a nightmare fielding the expectations of so many people – especially whilst trying to do the same with our own hopes and expectations.

We have the best social worker in the land. Despite making me cry at our first meeting, Tom and I have both grown to respect and cherish Denise and all the hard work she does for us. She’s clearly been there and seen it all and really knows her stuff. What’s extra lovely is I think she feels the same about us. At a meeting last week when we read a child’s report, she had really questioned the child’s social worker to find out everything she could as she felt ‘protective of us’ which almost made me cry again - though this time in a good way.

It’s no surprise that a fabulous social worker would work for a brilliant agency. There have been some ups and downs along the way but on the whole they have been great. Our training days were particularly good and we both feel that they have given us a solid grounding from which to work. We’ve also had sibling training, online safety training, and the promise of post-adoption training too. From our first prep days, we made friends with some other prospective adopters and we’ve enjoyed a few drunken nights together whilst we all wait for our children to join us (not literally, obviously). We’ve always been prepared for what’s coming next in the process and this has helped us enormously.

Of course, as with anything, there are things that are not quite so good…

Denise is actually our second social worker. We were introduced to Lorraine at our agency's office and I immediately took a dislike to her. I don’t know why – I just did. But I thought I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and see how things go. At the end of our ﻿first meeting at our house,﻿ I decided she might be OK but then she told us she was leaving the agency and we were going to be assigned a new social worker. I was so annoyed at wasting a whole afternoon that would have to be done again with our new social worker. It obviously turned out well but at the time I was not happy and it made me question whether we’d made the right decision about the agency.

By far the most irritating thing about the approval process is quite how long it takes. At the beginning, we’re told that Stage One will only take two months and Stage Two up to four. Whereas in actual fact while you wait for CBS and medical reports to be completed, Stage One can go on for what feels like forever (in our case it was just over four months). Denise has clearly been through these delays before as she knew exactly which forms we should sign with dates set in the past and future (very rarely on the actual day we were signing) in order for the statutory ‘timeline’ to work. If this happens over and again (which it does) why not just tell us Stage One is longer (in order to help manage our expectations) or allow us to progress onto Stage Two if all you're waiting for is a piece of paper to arrive?

But I should point out that I’m aware how lucky we are to have had such a good process. I know of people who have really not gelled with their social worker, whose social workers have repeatedly changed, whose agency is not up to scratch, or who have stayed in Stage One for months and months.

So if you’re about to start the approval process here are my top tips to keep you sane…

Make sure you’re ready. There’s obviously no ‘perfect’ time to start a family but you need to be in the right frame of mind before you start. Decorate the house, go on holiday, finish a project at work – anything that might get in the way needs to be done and dusted wherever possible.

Get yourself prepared. Read books & blogs, join support groups (We Are Family is particularly good), and talk through what’s happening with family and friends. But try not to get bogged down by it all.

Be patient. If you’re like me, you’ll struggle with this, but find something to help you through it. I started this blog so I could always have something to do when things were slowing down.

During Stage Two particularly, but also in Stage One, make sure you put aside time each week to talk through (and process) the assessment meetings; do any homework that’s needed; attend training events; meet with support groups; and read the plethora of books/blogs etc.

Get organised. There will be a lot of paperwork - I started with a plastic wallet to keep everything together, quickly moved up to a ring binder, and am currently on an extra-large lever-arch file.

Try not to let it take over your life – this is easier said than done but it can consume every conversation and thought in your life. Once your child arrives there’ll be very little time left for you, so embrace life as you know it while you can.

And most importantly, try to enjoy the process – the assessment meetings shouldn’t feel like a chore. We both came away feeling really positive about what we discovered about ourselves, each other and our relationship.

How was the approval process for you? What tips would you offer to someone starting the process?

Great advice! We're at the same stage as you and have had a similar experience - early change in SW, delays with medicals etc. But overall we feel very positive, we love our SW, have had brilliant training and feel we made right choice with our agency :-)

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ahopefuldad

1/8/2016 07:16:58 am

That's great to hear. So often we hear about all the terrible SWs and agencies. Thanks for reading and best of luck with matching.

Congratulations on getting this far, even if it feels like it's taking forever! If it makes you feel better, we took 18 months from initial enquiry to approval panel, and then another 7 months to matching panel, and then another one to introductions! Hope the rest of the process goes smoothly for you.

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ahopefuldad

1/8/2016 07:18:03 am

Thank you! We know we've been lucky overall. Just hope matching goes the same way. Hope all is well with you guys.

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Sarah B

2/8/2016 02:38:59 pm

Some super advice for someone like me who is still fairly near the start of the process (currently heading towards the end of Stage 1 -fingers crossed). Thankfully I am already doing some of these already too so glad to hear I'm on the right track. I hope the matching process goes well for you x

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My husband and I have adopted two wonderful children. Duckling is 5 and Gosling, her little brother, is 3. I'll be keeping track of our journey here...